1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods of routing electronic messages. Specifically, the present invention relates to methods for sequentially routing electronic messages to a series of recipients.
2. The Prior State of the Art
Practically all businesses today have a mail system permitting paper documents to be distributed to recipients sequentially. Consider the process of publishing an article in a journal. When an article is received from an author, it is placed in the mail system of the business. The article is first delivered to an editor who determines whether or not to publish the article. If the editor decides that the article should be published, it is sent to a proof reader. Otherwise, the editor rejects the article and it is returned to the author. Assuming that the article is to be published, the article is returned to the editor for review after it has been proofread. Finally, the article is sent to a layout department, where it is actually arranged and placed in the forthcoming publication. Paper documents are easily distributed to different persons in a sequential manner.
The sequential distribution of paper documents is usually successful, but has significant drawbacks, two of which are time and money. Consider a document that must move sequentially from a person in Los Angeles to a person in New York to a person in Miami and back to the person in Los Angeles. If overnight mail is used, the time required to complete this route is at least three days and probably more, and the cost can be substantial. Time and money are factors even when a paper document is sequentially delivered within a single business.
The growing ability of computers to transmit a document electronically appears to be the answer, but while a paper document can be sequentially distributed, general purpose electronic messaging systems have often not been capable of delivering an electronic message in a similar fashion. Rather, electronic messages can typically be sent to persons on distribution lists of varying complexity, but the electronic message is sent to those persons simultaneously rather than sequentially. Many electronic messaging systems simply do not have the capability to distribute an electronic message sequentially, even though many electronic messages must travel through the same stages and to the same persons as paper documents.
Some electronic messaging systems are capable of sequential, or workflow, distribution of messages, documents, and the like. For instance, many organizations in which an number of employees repeatedly perform specialized tasks with respect to documents have systems for electronically circulating the documents. Insurance companies that process insurance claims represent one example of this type of organization. Many insurance companies convert claim forms into computer-displayable documents, which are then sequentially distributed to different departments, each of which performs part of a defined claim adjudication process. These systems include one or a limited number of predefined workflow routes that guide the documents to sequential recipients in the organization. The routes are predefined by the software developer or vendor or are created by a system administrator. In any event, the routes defined in such messaging systems are not capable of being modified or created by users who might wish to sequentially distribute a message to recipients according to a route other than the predefined routes.
Still other messaging systems have workflow distribution capabilities, whereby a message can be distributed to recipients in series. In these workflow systems, routing instructions are attached to each message to be sequentially distributed. For instance, the routing instructions might specify that the message is to be sent to a recipient A, then to a recipient B, and finally to a recipient C. The message, along with the attached routing instructions, is sent first to recipient A. The client system of recipient A then processes the routing instructions such that the message is transmitted to recipient B. The client system of recipient B likewise executes the routing instructions and sends the message to recipient C. While this approach to workflow distribution of documents has reduced much of the time and cost otherwise associated with distribution of paper documents, it has several drawbacks. For instance, each recipient in the series, with the possible exception of the last recipient, is responsible for processing the routing instructions and forwarding the message to the next recipient. If the client is somehow incapable of processing the routing instructions, successive recipients may never receive the message. Moreover, if a message is lost or deleted, the accompanying routing instructions are also lost, and the message is not delivered to later intended recipients.
In view of the foregoing, there is a need in the art for a reliable workflow document distribution system that can replace conventional delivery of paper documents. It would be an advancement in the art to provide distribution systems that are flexible enough to allow routes to be defined by substantially any user that desires to do so. It would be advantageous if such workflow distribution systems did not rely on client systems to process routing instructions.
The present invention enables electronic messages to be distributed sequentially to recipients. According to the invention, work flow distribution of documents is achieved by establishing a hub and spoke topology within an email system. When a user initiates the sequential distribution of a message to multiple users, the message is transmitted from the user to the router, which corresponds to the hub of the hub and spoke model. The router then sends the message to the first recipient and waits for a response or for some other event that indicates that the message should then be sent to the second recipient. In this manner, the router sequentially sends the message to each recipient. Moreover, the routing instructions specifying the workflow route of the message are stored and executed at the router or at another central location, instead of being attached to the message and executed at client systems as had been practiced in conventional systems.
In one implementation of the invention, the routing instructions are encoded in a routing map and one or more associated scripts. The routing map is a state diagram defining the logic used to distribute the electronic message to sequential recipients. As a message is distributed to various recipients and responses thereto are evaluated, the distribution process advances from one state to the next in the routing map.
Execution of the activities defined in the routing map is performed intrinsically by a routing engine at the router or by the associated scripts. For instance, the routing map can define flow control activities, which generally define when and where the message is to be distributed. Flow control activities can be executed intrinsically by the routing engine. The routing map can also include evaluation or functional activities which are implemented by the associated scripts.
Distributing the routing instructions between the routing map and the associated scripts has several advantages. For example, the scripts can be written to perform any desired evaluation or functional activity without being limited to a particular routing map. As such, the scripts can be very flexible and readily modified. At the same time, the use of the routing map to control the execution of the sequence of the scripted functions maintains a rigorous structure in the routing instructions. Moreover, the routing maps can also be readily modified to define different workflow distribution processes without having to change the functional or evaluation activities defined by the scripts.
The routing maps and associated scripts can be user defined or default. User defined routing maps can be generated using an authoring tool that provides a graphical user interface or that otherwise simplifies the process of defining distribution routes to the extent that substantially any user who desires to define a route can do so. Routes can be saved to a folder, such that any electronic message dropped on the folder will be distributed according to the route. Alternatively, routes can be created and applied to single messages. The hub and spoke topology used with the invention allows the routing map and the associated scripts to be maintained and executed at the central router. This approach is in contrast to conventional systems in which routing instructions are attached to individual messages and transmitted to client systems. By managing the routing logic at a central location according to the invention, a defined distribution process can continue even if the message is lost by one of the recipients. Moreover, the invention does not rely on the capability of client systems to respond to sequential routing logic.
Additional objects and advantages of the invention will be set forth in the description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the description, or may be learned by the practice of the invention. The objects and advantages of the invention may be realized and obtained by means of the instruments and combinations particularly pointed out in the appended claims. These and other objects and features of the present invention will become more fully apparent from the following description and appended claims, or may be learned by the practice of the invention as set forth hereinafter.